Perfect Ten
by KT Welsh
Summary: Oneshot, post Parting of the Ways, pre CiN mini episode. Join the Doctor and Rose at the TARDIS wardrobe. Will Rose ever get used to her new companion's singing? Does the Doctor really have knobbly knees? And who owns that leather waistcoat?


**Perfect Ten **

He was doing it _again_.

Rose threw her hands over her ears and tried desperately to block out the noise reverberating through the entire TARDIS, but it was impossible.

Maybe the Doctor hadn't been joking when he claimed the Daleks had run away because he'd let loose with a song. He sounded like he was strangling a cat, and she couldn't for one moment believe that he'd been any better at carrying a tune in his previous incarnation. She had already seen enough of 'her' Doctor in the newcomer to convince her that they were one and the same person.

It had taken Rose surprisingly little time to come to terms with the concept of regeneration. Perhaps she should have been a bit more thrown about the whole Doctor-being-engulfed-in-bright-light-and-emerging-with-a-completely-changed-appearance-not-to-mention-a-different-personality thing, but she just couldn't find it within herself to get worked up about it.

After all, recently she'd been threatened by murderous mannequins, gone 50 years into the past to dangle from a rope while the Blitz raged below her, and developed the ability to leave messages throughout the universe to bring her back to the Doctor. This, by comparison, was child's play. Not to mention, much cheaper than extensive plastic surgery.

Rose didn't remember everything that had happened prior to the Doctor's regeneration, and following a few confused conversations they had worked out that the Doctor had the same problem, but memories of the events they'd been part of were slowly coming back to both, and much time was spent drinking tea and prompting each other to remember more. There were still a few gaps, but Rose was hopeful they would all be filled in soon. After all-

She completely lost her train of thought as he tried to hit an especially high note, and only succeeding in causing the TARDIS to pitch alarmingly to one side. Clearly, Rose wasn't the only one who didn't think much of the Time Lord's musical ability.

Right then, the torture had gone on long enough.

Rose followed the sound of what couldn't even charitably be called 'singing' until she was outside of the TARDIS's wardrobe, and then tried to attract her travelling companion's attention.

"Doctor?"

There was no response, unless you counted the few muffled bangs that could almost be heard over the wailing coming from inside the wardrobe. Rose tried again, slightly louder this time.

"Doctor?"

"Ah-ha!" a hand suddenly reached out of the wardrobe and grabbed her arm. She assumed it belonged to the Doctor, although frankly one could never be too careful these days. "I'm glad you're here, Rose. I'm having a bit of a crisis."

"What kind of crisis?" she asked, immediately alert to the danger. "Has something got into the TARDIS?" Her eyes narrowed. "Are you trying to make more Daleks run away?"

"No, no Daleks. No, no. It's much worse than that."

Rose was starting to get a little bit scared. "Well, what is it then, Doctor? Has something gone wrong with the TARDIS? Are we going to crash?" _Again_, she added silently. Now _that _whole episode had been quite an introduction to the ways of Doctor Number Ten.

"Something's gone very wrong with the TARDIS! Have you seen the state of what's in here?" The Doctor emerged from the depths of the wardrobe. "It's a disaster!"

There was silence for a moment as Rose looked the Doctor up and down. Finally, she began to speak very slowly, adopting the manner of someone forced to address a complete idiot.

"What…on…Earth…are you _wearing_?"

"Exactly!" The Doctor raised his hand with a flourish as if to show his disgust, sending the garments he'd had flung across his arm flying. "It's awful! I can't find a bleeding thing to wear!" He caught Rose frowning at him and his face immediately took on a concerned expression. "What is it? What's wrong?" He looked down at himself. "It's these trousers, isn't it? They make me look fat."

She shook her head. "It's just…before…I'm not used to…nothing," she finished quickly, and saw understanding dawn in his eyes.

"Ah, the old me didn't do this kind of thing, eh?" he said knowingly. "I've seen some of his stuff in here – he liked his leather, didn't he? Still, it's me we've got to clothe now, so I'd better crack on!" He turned as if to go back into the wardrobe, and then stopped to grin at her over his shoulder. "Stay here, would you? I can always use a second opinion."

Rose wasn't sure why, but she waited patiently for him to reappear, wincing periodically at the terrible warbling noise coming out of the wardrobe at her. Finally the Doctor reappeared again, dressed in an entirely different outfit from before.

"Thisis much better," he said, with a satisfied smile that stretched all the way to his (new, smaller) ears. "This is more like it. This is-"

"Absolutely ridiculous!" Rose snorted with laughter. "What do you look like?"

"What? I think I look rather dashing!" the Doctor protested. He paused. "Is it the scarf, do you think? Is it a bit too much?"

"It's all a bit too much," she giggled, waving him back into the wardrobe. "No one in his right mind would team a striped scarf and a Panama hat with such a garish jacket. Go on, try something else."

He was back in seconds. "Now, _this_ is definitely dashing." He tugged on one frilly lace cuff as he looked to Rose for her approval.

He didn't get it.

"I'm not sure you're the frock coat type, Doctor," she said. "Bit too skinny to be a romantic hero, really. Although my mum would probably go for it – mind you, that's not saying much is it?"

"Are you sure it doesn't suit me?" he queried seriously. He started back into the wardrobe. "Maybe you don't like it in red? It's in here in blue too. Shall I try that instead?" He was gone before she could reply.

The next four choices were quickly discarded as too bland, too loud, too big and too itchy respectively. Then there was the outfit which forcibly reminded Rose of the Mel Gibson film she'd watched once in history class.

"No way," she said at once. "Too Scottish."

"My dear Rose, there's no such thing!" The Doctor replied indignantly, but the effect was rather spoiled by the way he insisted on giving her a twirl.

"All right then, it's not practical. I wouldn't dream of getting up to half of what you do while wearing a skirt," she insisted, trying not to notice that the Doctor was showing off a nice pair of legs.

"You philistine! It's a _kilt_, not a skirt," he said with an exaggerated sigh, but retreated back into the wardrobe anyway. When he returned this time, there was a definite swagger in his stride. "Well, then, what about this? I like it. I like it _a lot_."

So did Rose.

The black tuxedo was cut perfectly to accent the lines of his lithe body, highlighting his broad shoulders, slender waist and long legs. He'd left the white dress shirt open at the neck, revealing an eminently kissable throat and just a glimpse of chest hair. Not that she trusted herself to look that low, choosing instead to concentrate on his Adam's apple. It was safer that way.

The only slight question mark were his choice of shoes – Rose wasn't sure brown went very well with a black suit at all – but she was prepared to overlook that in the face of such an attractive overall picture.

But she knew that she couldn't let him know the effect his latest choice of outfit was having on her, so instead she wrinkled up her nose and tried to affect an unsure tone.

"I don't know. I'm not sure. It's maybe a bit too…James Bond?" she said slowly, trying to allow enough time to imprint the picture on her memory before it was lost.

The Doctor gave her a sharp look. "Who's that then, another one of your boyfriends?"

There was a note of something in his voice that Rose didn't quite understand; something that she knew she should pick up on as important. Why did he sound…annoyed? No. Upset? Definitely not. It was almost as if he was…_jealous?_

No, that was too ridiculous for words. What did he possibly have to be jealous about? There was only Mickey, back on Earth, and even though the Doctor had changed, she knew that he still remembered Mickey.

What was she missing?

And suddenly a memory was hovering just out of reach; she could feel it. Heated skin suddenly cooled as a gentle pressure sent shivers down her spine…Rose shook her head to clear her muddled thoughts and another, apparently unrelated thought popped up out of nowhere.

A picture of a dark-haired man in a leather waistcoat formed in her mind's eye. His lips were moving as if he was speaking, and although she couldn't hear him she knew he was talking in an American accent. Who was he?

Rose suddenly became aware that the Doctor was waiting for a response, watching her carefully. She tried to laugh, although she couldn't quite shake the sensation that something was missing.

Or some_one_.

"Yeah, right, just call me Miss Moneypenny," she said, raising an eyebrow at him.

"Miss Moneypenny? Really? I mean, I have to say that I prefer Rose Tyler, but if it's what you want-" he started uncertainly.

"I was joking, Doctor," Rose sighed. That was what came of hanging around with aliens; they totally missed your sarcasm sometimes. "James Bond is a fictional spy. He's a character, you know, in a film?"

The Doctor shrugged, before giving her another quizzical look. "Are you sure you don't like this outfit?"

"No," she said, far too quickly. "Take it off – no, not out here!" She made a great show of covering her eyes as he started to unbutton the shirt (and she would deny peeking through the gaps in her fingers to her dying day). "Get back in there!"

"Spoilsport," the Doctor teased. "Right, I'm definitely going with the tartan. I think it's a good look on me."

She scoffed at that. "You're not even Scottish!"

"But I could be," he said thoughtfully.

Rose frowned. "What are you talking about?"

He gestured down at himself, half-undone shirt, brown shoes and all. "Well, it's all part of the regeneration process, isn't it? New body, new hair, new clothes, new personality - new accent."

She stared blankly at him. "But you've already got a different accent from before!"

The Doctor shrugged. "Yeah, but I've got to try out a few voices for size, haven't I? And between you and me, I'm not at all convinced by this one; it just doesn't sound right with the new teeth. I was thinking about going for a Welsh accent for a while, but Scottish might go better with the whole ensemble, don't you think?"

He gave her that slightly-manic-and-strangely-familiar grin again, and although she tried to stay firm, Rose couldn't help smiling as she replied.

"The accent you've got now is fine. And-" She paused briefly to consider the admittedly-pleasant idea of having those legs on view all of the time, then realised that she wouldn't be the only one to see them in that case. And that simply would not do at all. "-no offence, Doctor, but your new knees are a little bit, well, knobbly."

There was a stunned silence from her companion for a moment, and then a smirk spread slowly across his face. "Ah," the Doctor said knowingly. "I know what this is about." He waggled his finger at her. "You're worried my legs will look better than yours, aren't you?"

"Yeah, right," Rose rolled her eyes, hoping to distract him from the way colour had rushed to her cheeks. "Well, unless you can sing a bit better when you're being Scottish, it's a no from me." She clapped her hands over her ears as he immediately proved that pretending to be from Paisley did absolutely nothing to improve his singing prowess. "Is someone strangling a cat in here or something?"

"Hmm," the Doctor gave her an abashed look. "Guess that's a no then?" At her nod, he stepped back into the wardrobe, his voice growing fainter with each step. "Fine. If I can't have the kilt, I'm definitely going to try that black waistcoat I saw in here a minute ago, I'm sure-"

"Waistcoat? Oi, wait a minute, you can't wear that, that's Jack's-" she stopped.

Jack?

Suddenly the American had a name and a history as she remembered their travels together. But where was he? They'd last been together on the Game Station. She'd brought him back…and then they'd left him behind.

"Oh my God! Doctor? Doctor!" she called out in a panic. Her legs went out from under her and she clutched at the wall to try and stop herself from falling.

He was beside her again in less than two heartbeats. "What? What is it, Rose? What's the matter?"

"It's Jack! Jack!" she babbled. "We left him. He - I - he's alive!" She gave him a desperate look. "We have to go back for him. We have to rescue Jack!"

The Doctor looked confused, and Rose saw his lips start to form a single word – _Who_? But he stopped just before the sound escaped, his eyes widened slightly, and she knew comprehension had dawned.

"You're right, we do," he agreed immediately. "I'll set the TARDIS on the return course straight away." He turned to leave, and she grabbed his arm to stop him. The material of the brown pinstripe suit he was wearing was rough as it twisted in her fingers, but in her anguish she hardly noticed.

"He'll be all right, won't he, Doctor?" she asked desperately, not even trying to hide her despair. How could she possibly have forgotten him?

And more to the point, if she couldn't remember someone as important as Jack, what else lurked unknown in the past?

"Of course he will," the Doctor replied at once. His hand was gentle as it closed over hers. "He'll be fine." He titled his head to the side for a moment as he considered something. "Okay, he'll most likely be angry that we forgot about him, but I'm sure he'll some come round, once we rescue him and all. It shouldn't take more than a month for him to forgive us. I hope."

He gave Rose that infectious smile again, and it calmed her much more than words ever could. Breathing normally again, she smiled back.

"Was that meant to be reassuring?" she asked with a laugh. "If it was, you've still got a bit of work to do in that area, Doctor."

"Maybe so, but at least my outfit's all sorted," he retorted, arching one eyebrow for emphasis. "So grab me the brown overcoat that's hanging up over there, and we'll be on our way!"


End file.
